Hi there folks.....once again I have fallen behind in my updates and 2019 has been filled with some fun trips.....due to traveling with a school group last month, I have actually had four amazing trips in four amazing months and am headed on a fifth and sixth in the next two months....such a lucky girl.....
this update will focus on two trips in particular - a dive trip I took to curaçao during pope-cation....in January, the current pope came to Panama....which gave our school a week off of holiday at a non-normal time....and instead of me staying here and meeting him, I opted to go to curaçao, an island in the carribean, and went diving for the week....it was awesome!!!!
and then in march I was asked to escort a group of kids with another adult for a model UN conference....the kids did very well, we were the school that travelled the farthest, and because of this, we also did some cool things in and around Paris....I also got to connect with some friends whom I had worked with previously...it was a win-win situation for me!!!!!
I will try and get the next update out sooner rather than later and that will focus on my amazing carnival trip to Trinidad and Tobago and then hopefully another will surface about my spring break road trip through Panama with two friends who came to visit.....what a good time....but let's get on with curaçao and Paris....shall we???? I hope you enjoy the pictures and stories....
this is the view from the place that I stayed at on curaçao....I arrived there my first day just in time for the sunset.....as you can see, it was lovely....and it was really this nice every evening....this was also the way my dive boat went out the three mornings I dove from a boat....captain Andy and the dive crew each time were awesome.....there will be some shots below from the dives.....
Curacao has tons of iguanas....and these animals get huge....no predators I think.....but they would hang in the trees and bushes and roam all over the grounds of the place I stayed at...it was rather swanky and would probably not be the choice I would make again if I went back....but it was nice to be pampered a bit on this vacation :)
this was the color of the water many places we visited....this was a particular hotel where you could dive by walking down these stairs....due to the water being a bit choppy we did not put in here....but it certainly was worth a picture.....
it seems that everywhere you go in the world now, you will find one of these signs.....this is a shot of me (I am in the O), my dive buddy and his wife on the one night we went into willemstad....the capital of this island....it is an interesting island, in that it was a dutch colony for a very long time....at this time curaçao is now its own nation and is located just off the coast of Venezuela.....because of its past, people who live here speak Dutch, Spanish, English and Papiamento - the most interesting one in my opinion....many people speak all four languages....which just blows my mind.....
the art in willamsted is fun and public art seems to be on the uprise....this particular artist paints chichi....a woman of curaçao....strong, fun and expressive.....its not a very big town, but it is a fun place to come for a night....
willamsted has a pontoon bridge, just like in Seattle....although it is a walking bridge, not for cars.....it floats on pontoons and it can open and close for boat traffic....it actually is wide enough to let cruise ships come into the main harbor.....and it lights up at night, as you can see behind me in the picture above....
willamsted does remind me of a European town with some of its buildings and set up....like what you see above.....this is a classic shot for postcards from here :) but this is where the bridge is located that is a the pontoon bridge.....there is also a floating market off to the left of this picture....fun to walk through....the boats are in the water with their goods and you walk along the dock shopping....
as promised, here are a few pictures from my 12 dives over 6 days....the reefs in curaçao were some of the most healthy I had seen...they even had coral ladders for stag horn coral, where they were growing coral to increase sizes of already established reefs....I was mostly diving in the south west side and the part we took a boat to was private property for the place I was staying....so very pristine and unaffected by humans....except for golf balls...as the resort had a golf course....we picked up quite a few on some of our dives.....the fish you see above is a porcupine fish, a member of the puffer fish family...I find them to be quite adorable....no, I did not take this picture, my dive master on one of my dives did...it is an excellent shot though and I really did see this fish with my own eyes.....
if you have been diving, you know that lion fish have become a huge problem in many locations....they eat everything and do not have many predators....as you can see from the shot above though, they are lovely to look at and if you cook them correctly, I am told they taste delicious....please realize if you cook them incorrectly, they can cause you to die.....they are a problem in curaçao as well.....this is another shot taken by my dive master KK...she was impressive with her camera......
I did have one day on the island where I did not dive and went exploring....here I am in the national park shete boka....named for the "seven inlets" that have been carved out by the carribean sea....the water is rough and powerful and creates amazing waves and splashes....just beautiful....
this shot is from boka pistol....where the waves come in and shoot back out like they have been shot from a gun....the height and force from the impact is rather impressive.....
again you see the blue, blue, blue curaçao waters.....this is the place where they make the liquor based on the color of the water....this area was called Alice in wonderland.....simply stunning.....if I do go back, this is one spot I want to dive at....
this is me and my wetsuit on Caracas beach....we did a shore dive from here and rewarded with a line of 11 squid traveling past us....squid look soooooo cool as they swim by.....and they are usually iridescent and can change colors.....it was a great dive.....
in march I had the honor of accompanying a group of middle schoolers to Paris for a model United Nations (MUN) conference....16 kids and 2 adults....and we had a blast....we got to see some things in Paris and around Paris, as well as participate in the conference and I got to meet up with some of my favorite folks from past adventures of mine.....
one of the coolest things we did in my opinion, was go through the Paris catacombs with a guide....I had no idea they were so deep and held skeletons from so many of the dead....the catacombs stretch under most of Paris and were built to deal with a "dead" problem...people were buried in pits before the construction here and these pits started to break and flood basements and places where people did not want decaying bodies......so Paris built the catacombs....they hold the remains of more than 6 million people.....
they are 20 meters (60 feet) below the surface of Paris, and there are approximately 320 km (200 miles) of these tunnels below Paris....they only take people on the tours for about 1.5 km of those tunnels....much of the rest of it is unknown...people have gotten lost down there and died....especially from groups who were holding secret meetings below the surface.....
two interesting things I found out about the catacombs is that they were used by both sides during WW2 for being able to move secretly around the city...I did not find any information on the two sides running into each other down there....but who knows.....the second thing that I thought was pretty crazy was that in the late 19th century the catacombs were used by mushroom farmers to grow mushrooms within the city....well, under the city....it is said in some locations of the catacombs this practice is still be followed....hmmmmmmmmmmmm
here is a shot of all of us, not me, I am taking the picture, after finishing the catacombs....all kids and adults made it out alive....phew :)
another trip we took with the kids was to Govern, France, just outside of Paris...this is where Claude monet's house and garden are located....we were about two weeks too early for the full bloom of plants and flowers for the spring, but it was still a lovely spot.....growing up, monet's water lilies series was one of my favorite set of paintings....and this is a shot of me on the bridge that was used in that series.....
his house and gardens were amazing....here was a fabulous spot for the kids to sit and wait after they got bored of roaming around.....hahahahahaha....those of you with teenagers know, it is hard to keep them off their phones and not bored for more than twenty minutes...luckily they had a place that was pretty where they could rest and complain if needed ;)
this is a shot of monet's house.....so much of it had a Japanese theme inside....I had no idea he loved Japanese work as much as he did....many rooms were completely dedicated to Japanese styles of art...
however, one of his rooms was turned into a viewing spot for his works of art....all of these are replicas of the real pieces of art....they no longer reside in his house, they are all in museums around the world....kind of weird in my opinion.....but the replicas were fun to look at as well.....
the kids and I also took a boat ride on the seine....this was one of the activities of the kids from the host of this conference - the American school of Paris.....it was lovely, although there was quite a bit of unrest we steered clear of from the yellow vests....the week before in the protests they had trashed many stores and such on the champs elysees, so getting to the seine was a bit tricky....but once there the views were spectacular....we were even able to see Notre dame from the boat.....glad I saw it one last time before the fire....
as I said above, one of the reasons this trip was awesome for me was that I saw and met folks I had not seen in a long time or who currently work with past colleagues of mine....the woman on the right, laura, was from Vienna and works with my friend Ariadne....and my friend Tina on the left worked at the American school in Shanghai and all three of us have worked with or currently work with my close friend David (he's in Panama with me)....it's a small, small, small international teaching world.....
the other added bonus was spending time with dan, my previous principal/friend in china....he is now the elementary principal in Paris....lucky man!!!! I love reconnecting with folks like this.....reminds me how many awesome teachers there are in the world, with whom I have had the pleasure and good fortune to work with....man, kids sure are lucky :)
we also wandered around the neighborhood we stayed in so the kids could see the local Paris streets....did you know that Paris had a canal & lock system???? I had no idea, but this was around the corner from where we stayed....pretty cool to discuss this canal system in relationship to the Panama Canal here......
we also took a graffiti tour with the students...it was fun to see some of the street art that has been around forever, that I have tracked all over the planet....like space invaders like you see above.....paris is where this artist started....so it was cool to see his stuff....
we were also taken to a park that overlooked Paris and had quite a bit of mosaics that had been created by members of the community we were in....loved this pillar of mosaics....
soooooo, this shot is not from Paris....I don't really have one of me having a beer....not the best choice when traveling with students....however, we did have a stopover in the Netherlands for a night and two special people came by to have a beer with me....both of whom I had not seen in quite a long time...alan, the guy on the right I worked with in Seattle before he and his family started working abroad and Darren, the guy on the left, I worked with in Bucharest a long, long time ago....cool thing was they came for the evening and have been working at the same school for the past four years in the Netherlands together....and during this time it was realized we had all had the pleasure of working together at one time or another...lucky for me they made time for me in their schedules and I got to catch up with them both....love that about international friends....they make the time you have work....it was awesome!!!!!
there you have it....two very different trips, to two very different places, each with their own adventures....I loved both of these trips for very different reasons.....and am extremely thankful I was able to make them happen.....the next update will be about my incredible carnival trip to Trinidad and Tobago....it was just outstanding.....if you have any questions about these trips, do not hesitate to contact me...it has been rather busy in my life with school, but I will try and answer whomever gets in touch....unfortunately personal email seems to suffer the most when school is busy, which it always is....
I hope every one has had a good start to their spring or fall...and that teachers in the northern hemisphere are excited for summer vacations....I will be in the states for a very short period this summer, but if you want to try and meet up, please get in touch.....hope all is well and I'll be back again soon.....
peace out....dani
